The cupcake craze

Once there were none. Now, cupcake boutiques are popping up on nearly every major street in Tel Aviv, like mushrooms after the rain (or, if you will, cupcakes at a child’s birthday party).

It all began not long ago, in late 2008, when this blog was still in its infancy. Around that time, I met with a friend of a friend, Ofer Yeger, who was looking to import the American cupcake fad to Israel, and wanted advice on setting up a website.

Ofer launched her virtual bakery in 2009, nearly simultaneously with two other online cupcake stores. In a matter of weeks, Israel went from having no cupcake stores to having three. Ofer’s since moved on — her site is now a fashion blog — but one of the others, I Love Cupcakes, launched a physical store at Ben Yehuda 114 this February. It was followed by Viola’s Cupcakes at Dizengoff 154 in March, and then Red Velvet at Ibn Gvirol 9 in May. Meanwhile, Nadine Cupcakes has had a booth at the Tel Aviv Farmer’s Market on Fridays for a while now. (Note: All the photos in this post are from Viola’s.)

All this begs a few obvious questions: Will cupcakes really catch on here? And, is there enough demand for all these new cupcake shops? Many of the people behind them are either immigrants from English-speaking countries or encountered cupcakes while visiting the United States, and for them, cupcakes have positive associations that go beyond little frosted cakes. To what degree will they become part of the culinary landscape? Many people here aren’t sure what differentiates them from muffins. I haven’t seen other, established bakeries offering them — a sign of greater success — although I’ve heard that some indeed have jumped on the bandwagon.

So far, the cupcakes (and their bakers) have won themselves a decent amount of press — they’re new and unusual, and they photograph well. That’s also probably why people are excited to see them at parties — they’ve shown up at a few events I’ve attended in the past few months, and everyone is always thrilled.

My take on the cupcake scene

While only time will give concrete answers to these questions, I figured the best way to go about my research was, well, eating some cupcakes. After consuming at least half a dozen of them, here are my findings.

To me, the biggest value comes from being able to sit in a pleasant streetside cafe, especially when I can get a cupcake-and-cappuccino for less than 20 shekels. That price is beyond reasonable; in general, when I go out with friends, I look for a pleasant place to sit and frequently order a coffee-pastry combo. While I haven’t seen any Magnolia-style lines around the corner, the shops all had a good number of people sitting at the tables when I stopped by.

Obviously, the quality of the various cupcakes varies from place to place, ranging from merely average to Magnolia-esque fabulous. All the places offer a variety of flavors, and while I haven’t tried them all, the best cupcake I’ve had to date was the vanilla cupcake at Red Velvet.

I’m not entirely sure how my perception jibes with the hopes of the cupcake shop entrepreneurs. While they clearly understand that a pleasant atmosphere is important, given that all the stores invested in design, many told the press that they hope to develop a healthy take-out business. While people have been buying them for the novelty factor, in my opinion the prices are too high — 12 to 15 shekels per cupcake — to merit making them a regular purchase. I’ll happily pay that much to sit in a cafe, mind you, but to eat a cupcake at home? Not so much. As to whether other consumers disagree with me on this point, we’ll see.

Update: Too pretty to eat

I encountered these cupcakes and cakes at the Thursday night artists market at the newly opened Tachana complex. To my dismay, they were made out of plaster. They’re made by Shimrita, on the assumption that everyone has a cake stand or two sitting around empty. They kind of remind me of Wayne Thiebaud’s painting.

On another note, the complex itself, built out of Jaffa’s 100-year-old train station, is beautifully done. However, everything there is ridiculously expensive, aside from Cafe Greg.

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12 Responses to "The cupcake craze"

yesterday I made a batch of cupcakes using an American recipe. I had forgotten how sweet Americans like their pastries. Instead of the regular ganache frosting I usually use, I made a butter cream. My fillings almost popped off it was so sweet.
I think the cupcake bakeries will have lots of competition from the French style patisseries.

Very interesting, I don’t recall seeing any cupcakes in Israel when I visited but that was a long time ago… gosh, 10 years I think?!

Anyway, though I do love a good cupcake, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just a fad and doesn’t catch on. From my (still limited) travels to Middle Eastern and Mediterranean countries, I notice that the dessert palette is quite different than here in America. I have encountered many non-Americans who find American desserts “too sweet”, and although I have never been a “too sweet” kind of person, I am definitely growing to appreciate some less-sweet desserts with greater depth of flavor – which I think you probably have many of!

Cara, you barely would have seen them here six months ago!
You’re definitely onto something regarding the sweetness. Many of the places here have altered the traditional American frosting recipes and replaced the with ganache, as Sarah mentioned, so they’d be less sweet.

Hi Chaya, thanks for stopping by. Yes, possibly — I’m wondering whether they’re even big right now, beyond the media hype. Unlike the United States, people here didn’t grow up with cupcakes, so there’s less of a foundation for a trend to take hold … that’s my thought on the matter. We’ll see, I guess.

Thank you! I thought that the cupcake-crazy tended to be expats. I’ve always enjoyed baking them, decorating them and just peering at them in shop-windows. Thank you for this post. I wonder if they’ll ever reach Haifa…

Hi Liz. When a person pays 15 shekel for a cupcake 2.4 goes for vat. Probably another 2.5 goes for products (you want cream cheese frosting right?). And still the pastry chef needs to be paid, rent for the place, electricity, water etc (all of those things that you won’t consider when baking at home). And I assume that all these bakeries that you mentioned throw what was left at the end of the day. So what the value for a single cupcake before taxes? 4 shekels top? (which is 2 after taxes). And, yes, the lines are not like at Magnolia, so how many do they sell a day? 100? 200? Wow if they are really lucky they are making 400 shekels a day!!! They are ripping us off!!! Now seriously; as a cupcake lover I’m happy to pay 15 shekels each and 90 for half a dozen, since I used to owe a bakery and I know how much little they make at the end of the day.
Btw, they are all delicious!!!

Hi Nona, thanks for the insightful point. You’re completely right, of course. In Israel of all places, it’s very expensive to be a small producer. The market here isn’t very large, so you don’t have the potential pool of customers you have in, say, the United States.

But this leads to market failure problems — it isn’t profitable for the bakers to sell for less, but people buy less than they would otherwise because in absolute terms, it’s not a cheap product. You, as someone who worked in the industry, realize how much effort goes into every cupcake. The ultimate question is whether enough other people do, too, and think that it’s worth the cost.